Kavalan 15th Anniversary Vintage 2009 Oloroso Sherry Cask (750 ml)

When T.T. Lee founded the Yuan Shan Distillery in Yuanshan Township in 2005, the founding premise was deliberate transgression: that subtropical heat could compress decades of Scottish maturation into years. Spirit distilled in 2009 — among Kavalan's earliest production runs — was filled into a single Oloroso sherry cask and left to the mercy of Yilan's warehouse floors, where summer temperatures climb to 42°C on upper tiers, driving wood extraction at a rate unmatched in any cool-climate distillery.

The Yuan Shan site sits at the convergence of cold air descending from the Xueshan (Snow Mountain) Range at 3,886 m and humid Pacific Ocean breezes, with distillation water drawn from Snow Mountain springs filtered through gravel and sand. That thermal swing — not a gradual Scottish chill — is what forces the new-make deep into the Oloroso oak, pulling dried fruit, oxidative nut, and dark chocolate from the sherry-seasoned wood while the tropical Pacific humidity preserves body and prevents over-extraction.

Production follows double distillation in Forsyths copper pot stills (12,000-litre wash / 7,000-litre spirit), with the spirit cut narrowed to 65–55% ABV specifically to increase ester complexity before cask entry. As a 15th Anniversary bottling, this is released at natural cask strength, non-chill-filtered — single barrel, no dilution, no filtration stripping the long-chain esters accumulated over a subtropical maturation equivalent to 25+ years in Scotland.

The special feature: a 2009 fill date places this among the distillery's foundational-era spirit, the same vintage cohort that underpins the inaugural Kavalan 15 Years Old (2025 Edition) — making this Oloroso single cask a rare single-barrel window into that historically significant early production.